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How to Cultivate Engaged Employees

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CASE STUDY 129
SYNTHESIS 134
LIFE'S WORK 140
A GermanВ·Chinese
joint ventura faces
diverging ethics
How gtobalization
Michelle Bachelet
on being Chile's first
female president
affects languages
Managing Your Professional Growth labr.org
uccessful managers depend on the
capabilities oftheir subordinates:
George's marketing skills, Maria's
ability to run the numbers, Michael's local
knowledge, Dimitra's IT expertise. Shelves
and shelves ofbooks offer managers'
advice on how to mobilize their people to
achieve overall performance targets.
Although most upwardly mobile
managers know that an empowered
team enhances their performance,theeverydayreality
of corporate hierarchy and
a compulsion to control
their own fate can doud that
awareness. Many companies,
particularly in the U.S. and westem
Europe, are abandoning the top-down,
command -and -control model. Nevertheless, lots of managers still apply it, triggering a vicious cyde. When confronted
with su eh a boss, employees respond by
jealously guarding their only source of
power-their distinctive experience-and
the team is driven apart. The members may
remain functionally interdependent, but
that interdependence is ineffective, which
means that a lot of value is squandered.
1have spent m u eh of m y career in companies and countries where this cycle of
control and disengagement was especially
vicious. For more than 30 years 1worked
for and then managed a farnily enterprise,
founded by my grandfather in 1880, that
traded extensively in Russia, eastern Europe, the Black Sea states, and elsewhere.
After selling the business in the mid -1980s
and for decades thereafter, 1became an
investor, researcher, and consultant for
S
MANAGING YOURSELF
How to Cultivate
Engaged Employees
by Charalambos A. Vlachoutsicos
September 2011 Harvard Business Review 123
EXPERIENCE
companies that were looking to enter
those regions, as well as an educator.
In these roles, my biggest challenge
was teaching bosses how to glean contributions from, and thereby promote engagement by, their local employees. Their
job, 1explained, was to ensure that every
interaction with a subordinate fostered a
sense of mutual dependence, or what 1call
"mutuality:' To help in that effort, 1developed a set oflessons, which 1share in this
artide.
privatized Albanian canned -fish packing
plant that 1consulted for in the 1990s.
1sat in on one ofthe daily management
meetings led by Kurt and attended by the
heads of sales, production, finance, procurement, and govemment relations. The
reporting part of the meeting went well.
But then Kurt started talking. Both his
words and his manner said, "Given that 1
know everything and you know nothing,
here's what you should do:' Condescending, absurdly detailed instructions were
To be successful, managers must see
themselves more as catalysts for problem
solving than as problem solvers per se.
The events 1 shall recount took place
mostly in central and eastem Europe,
but they can be applied universally, particularly at companies that still ding to
top-down leadership and rigid hierarchy.
Indeed, many of the managers 1helped
carne from the U.S. and westem Europe,
and despite their formal management
training they cultivated little more from
their employees than their Soviet predecessors had done.
The lessons 1share will seem familiar in
the abstract, but the real value, as always,
is in the details (although names have
been changed to protect the innocentand the guilty). Those details will help you
compare what you and others in your organization are doing with what you know
you ought to be doing.
B(
MODEST
Modesty, virtue though it is,
often dashes with basic fears. Many new
managers are nervous about proving
themselves, so they end up discouraging
their subordinates from speaking up and
thereby fail to benefit from their experience. Consider Kurt, the German CEO of a
124 Harvard Business Review September 2011
supplemented by irrelevant stories about
how he had succeeded in solving problems. When he finished, an hour later, and
asked for questions, the room seemed
ready to ignite with one lit match. No
one spoke, and the senior managers left
silently and sullenly.
Ifyou find yourselftelling a selfreferential story like Kurt's, stop and apologize for blathering. You're just showcasing your own insecurities. Recount your
experiences briefly-and only ifyou can
relate them to those ofyour subordinates.
Prove to your people not that you have a
record as a problem solver but that your
ideas and advice can help them now.
Also remember to share both your
mistakes and your successes. Trying to
achieve that balance brings you down to
earth in the eyes of subordinates, and it
makes you reflect on why you are telling
stories in the first place.
liSTfN
SfRtOUSll-
AND SHOW IT
In general, managers are getting better at listening to employees. But
their teams don't always see it, or even
recognize that it matters. 1remember
leading a tumaround ata Georgian flour
mili that had been taken over by Westem
investors. Local supervisors were resisting
the changes 1 had proposed, despite my
best efforts to engage them in decision
making. 1sat down with one of the most
disaffected managers, who said 1had
never listened to his reservations. "But
I've been taking careful notes at all our
meetings;' 1told him. "Surely you must
have seen that?"
"1 saw you writing, yes;' he replied. "But
you used loose sheets that I'm pretty sure
you threw away afterward. Ifyou were
taking our input seriously, you'd be using a
bound notebook, as you see me do:'
1assured this manager that 1was keeping the notes, but 1 could tell he didn't
believe me. So the next day 1brought in
m y ringed binder, and he saw for himself
how 1had meticulously recorded and
commented on what 1had heard. The
change in attitude was remarkable. He and
his colleagues recognized that 1had carefully considered their advice befare going
against it, which made it easier for them
to accept my decision. It all tumed on the
way 1had taken notes!
This experience taught me that communication is multifaceted. People tune
in to your body language, where you look,
what you do with your hands. It can be
hard to remember this when you're in a
meeting, but managing such signals is
essential. (Whatever you do, don't look at
your watch or check the time on your mobile device while someone else is talking.)
flattening their hierarchies, strong cultural
and company norms work against dissent,
especially in public and during times of
economic uncertainty.
One way to fight this tendency is to
reformat meetings in simple ways. For
HBR.ORG
example, when the Western CEO of a large
telecom company's Ukrainian division
was struggling to get his employees to
do anything more than execute orders, 1
advised him to stop holding discussionoriented meetings ata traditional rectangular table, where everyone sat in hierarchical order, and start using a round one.
A few months later, the CEO told me that
the new format had worked so well that he
and sorne of his direct reports had decided
to get rid of their rectangular tables.
Solutions are not always that easy, of
course. You must also work to elicit direct
feedback, particularly disagreement, from
employees. Managers should view every
interaction with subordinates, not just
formal one-on-one meetings, as a chance
to tap their expertise and encourage them
to express what they really think.
1was once asked by a large U.S. dispatch company to sort out a problem it
faced in getting feedback from local staff
in Belarus. Pekka, the Finnish manager
in charge, complained, "No matter how
much 1try, they don't even share their
suggestions with me, let alone their
disagreements:'
One problem was getting the local custorns office to dear packages. The usual
solution was sirnply to bribe officials, a
practice strictly prohibited by the Western
parent company. At a meeting, Pekka
floated the idea of asking the U.S. embassy
to lodge a protest. No one commented
or offered suggestions. Later 1met with
Igor, a local manager who seemed to be an
informalleader, and asked for his opinion.
Without hesitation he said, "We can help
the customs office with its perennial cash
flow problem. We offer to prepay at the
beginning of every month an amount corresponding to the latest six-month average
of monthly customs fees, and every three
months to square the amount with the
fees due for the actual quantities cleared:'
1invited him to share this ingenious
idea with Pekka, which he did. The advice
was accepted, and the problem was solved.
1 explained to Pekka that after three generations under authoritarian communism,
no one would volunteer an opinion, let
alone contradict his boss, unless asked
personally. So he began to solicit advice
from individuals, and a few months later
he reported to me that people had started
to disagree and offer opinions.
Bosses in more-open cultures rnight
see this problemas alien. But consider all
your team members-especially those
from other generations, cultures, or
professional backgrounds-whose voices
rnight be drowned out by vocal colleagues.
Are you sure you wouldn't get more from
them with a personal approach?
t !.~,~~~~~!v~ffiili
good intentions. I've often seen managers who willingly invite disagreement do
it in an undisciplined way, especially in
meetings where "all ideas are on the table:'
The trouble is that the more you put on
the agenda, the less time eaeh person has
to talk, unless your meeting runs for a long
time. Ifyou seta time lirnit, you end up
racing through parts of the agenda, which
causes consternation.
In the 1960s northern Greece was our
farnily company's fas test-growing market.
We opened an office in the regional capital,
ThessalonГ­ki, and appointed Stavros, our
most experienced salesman, to head it.
Contrary to expectations, sales stagnated.
When 1went to investigate, 1 observed the
weekly sales-review meeting led by Stavros and attended by his eight sales supervisors. Before the meeting, 1asked Stavros
to tell me what would be discussed. He
rattled off u items, many quite complex.
At the meeting, he proceeded to give
everyone a say, and we easily exceeded
the allotted two hours and completed only
half the agenda. Because the items had not
been prioritized, many critica! problems
were not discussed.
So 1helped Stavros to develop a set of
agenda guidelines. He would sequence
issues according to importance, and he
HBR.ORG
EXPERIENCE
Managers should view every interaction with
subordinates, not just formal one-on-one
meetings, as a chance to tap their expertise and
encourage them to express what they really think.
would omit those that could be settled in
offline chats. He then looked for opportunities to reduce discussion time by, for
example, sending written briefmgs the day
before.
Stavros and I role-played together,
switching parts as chairman and participant. Befare I left, I attended a real meeting at which Stavros applied the "new
way;' as he called it. He was uncomfortable at first, but he relaxed as the meeting
progressed and the quality of the discussion improved. Within a few months, sales
in the region picked up, and Stavros had
even managed to shorten the meeting by
about 30 minutes.
DON\T TRY
TO HAV{ All
THE AnSWERS
Problem solving is central to
the manager's sense of self, and feelings
ofinadequacy can surface when a solution is elusive. In such situations, sorne
managers try to come up with answers on
thespot.
In my family business, I once had to
determine whether the warehouse had
space for our new products. Spyros, our
warehouse manager, was a can-do guy,
but he was also compulsive. Without
bothering to do any calculations, he proposed creating space by moving stacks of
existing products closer to one another,
and he quickly began telling people what
to move where.
I felt a mounting, unexpressed tension
develop among the workers. They were
worried that if the stacks were moved any
doser, the lifting trucks would be unable
to maneuver among them. That tension
126 Harvard Business Review September 2011
and m y presence caused Spyros to proffer
increasingly unrealistic solutions, which
only heightened tensions further. I proposed creating a space-management task
force comprising Spyros, the warehouse
personnel, andan outside specialist.
Spyros had lost sorne face, so 1 took
him out to lunch and emphasized how we
managers can make things much easier
just by admitting our ignorance. Sadly,
Spyros never quite learned todo that, and
eventually we had to replace him.
To be successful, managers must see
themselves more as catalysts for problem
solving than as problem solvers per se.
I have leamed to be suspicious of managers who seem to have all the answers. A
far better indication of managerial skill is
a willingness to admit, "I'm not sure what
the answer is. Let's have the team toss
sorne ideas about:'
DON\T INSIST
THAT AOfCISION
MUST BE MflDt
Conventional management wisdom holds that a flawed decision is better
than no decision. After all, you can always
change direction, and you will at the very
least leam from your mistakes.
When I was making my way up
through the ranks of m y family business,
people were keen to help me leam. The
fact that I was the boss's son did not stop
employees, especially those with many
years of experience, from saying what they
thought. But 1wanted to show that 1was
decisive. If a discussion didn't end with a
dear condusion, I would say, "Since we
don't agree, I'm making the decision, and
here's what it is:'
Pretty soon people stopped asking
questions. I initially mistook this as
evidence ofmy own leadership acumen,
but 1soon realized that I was often making
bad decisions. So 1met with my people
individually and asked them why they
weren't critical when they felt I was wrong.
Eventually they told me it was because I
seemed to have made up my mind in advance, and they figured either that I knew
something they didn't or that 1wouldn't
respond well to frequent dissent. I apologized and started to work toward building
consensus. When people realized I was
serious about that, they started participating active!y again, and fewer mistakes
weremade.
If you can't get agreement on a decision, don't rush to impose one. Think
instead about putting in place a process
that yields decisions, even slowly made
ones, that everyone can accept even if
agreement is not unanimous. That way
you won't lose your people's goodwill for
the next round.
AS THESE six lessons
show, your behavior
as a manager can reinforce or destroy a
sense of mutuality with your employees.
Heaven knows how much value I squandered befare I recognized my dependence
on my subordinates to make practical
decisions and to implement them effectively. This realization led me to develop
and follow the six guidelines-not that
they are the only ones worth heeding. The
rewards are huge when you stop trying
to control your subordinates and instead
engage, empower, and motivate them to
contribute their knowledge and experience toa consensus approach. They, you,
and your company will all benefit from
smarter, better-executed decisions. lj
HBR Reprint R1109K
Charalambos A. Vlachoutsicos, a former
businessman and frequent HBR contributor,
is an adjunct professor in the lnternational MBA
Program at Athens University of Economics and
Business. He is also a coauthor, with Paul R.
Lawrence, of Behind the Factory Walls: Oecision
Making in Soviet and u.s. Enterprises (Harvard
Business Review Press, 1990).